East India Company

The East India Company was the trading company chartered in 1600 by Elizabeth I of England with a monopoly over the Eastern Hemisphere.

The East India Company was the trading company chartered in 1600 by Elizabeth I of England with a monopoly over the Eastern Hemisphere. Schemes for promoting the British fur trade between the Pacific coast and China, including those of Alexander Dalrymple and Alexander Mackenzie, necessitated inclusion of the East India Company, whose privileges deterred such commerce. Except during the period 1814-16, when the EIC licensed the North West Company to use its own ships to carry furs to China, the NWC found EIC regulations sufficiently restrictive that it used American ships for this trade. The EIC's monopoly ended by 1833, and the company was dissolved in 1874.